WoW – More fun together!

Wait, When Did I Become a “Hardcore” Raider?

I woke up this morning thinking of all the things I have to do today. Half day of work, got to get a build out for testing before I sign off. Cleaners coming, got to pick up socks. Friday afternoon usually means some gallivanting for Nomster and me. Probably better pick up some beer and margarita stuff – it’s raid night!

Seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I argued that we couldn’t commit to scheduled raiding, yet here we are, not just committed but running two four-hour raids every week – and that doesn’t touch the tip of the iceberg! I think I need to make some sort of schedule for myself of raid support tasks to make sure they’re done. Right now, it goes something like this:

Put out the week’s invites. I usually do this Friday night during the raid, actually, because I know everyone is on and can sign up.

Check who can’t come or is tentative. Find someone else to cover those slots

If anyone is getting benched, figure it out now

If there’s anything odd about the lineup, discuss it with Reversion

During the week, run my daily every day for Valor points

Do my JC daily every day. Try to figure what patterns will most help other raiders

There’s always some other grind. This week it was leveling enchanting so as to be sure to put unused epics to good use. Some weeks it’s archeology, looking for Tyrande’s Friggin’ Doll. I’ve finished my rep grinds, I’m bypassing the Tol Barad dailies because that’s just one thing too many…

Reversion is running heroics on his second bear to get Chaos Orbs; I think he’s the only maxed leatherworker in guild and we have several people lined up for epic chestpieces.

Tuesday night, as soon as Reversion is home, log on and build a Tol Barad raid. We seem to always have TB on Tuesday nights, and rarely any other time. Sadly by the time we get on, 2/3rds of guild is saved on three alts. This week we took three puggers from Trade but they did just fine.

Assess raid supplies Wednesday, decide if we need to fish or farm flasks. Make flasks no later than Thursday

All through this period, answer whispers from raid members about where we’re going, what role they are playing, gear related questions, how should they spend their valor points, what alt should they level, who is the tank this week, where are we going again?, which bosses first? did you already do Baradin Hold? can you help me with this piece of gear? do you have this gem cut?

Run randoms with any guildies, but try hard to get raid members in. One night this week we split into two groups because there were 8 of us wanting a heroic!

On raid night, get online and build the group, answer the “where are we going” question again, assign raid assists and set loot threshold

Sit back and do what Reversion says – except, I still boss the healing team around so sometimes I have to speak up…

It sounds like a lot of work, and I’m not getting much chance to play alts, but it’s really worth while and I don’t mind. I have the “ahead of time” work; Reversion takes over as raid lead, with me tossing in healing assignments/suggestions when warranted. It means neither of us has a crushing load.

The key is, we chose all this, and we run it all; if I had to do this much work for some raid that I didn’t feel like I was “running”, I’d hate it. Heck, I don’t know that I’d commit every Friday and Saturday night to raiding if we weren’t running it. I’d always feel like “maybe there’s something else we want to do”. Hint: as a pair of married WoW players, with a two year old, raiding is about the best and cheapest Friday night date you can get. No babysitter required!

Honestly I didn’t quite realize how much extra time would be involved when we decided to start a raid, but it’s worth it. Once I have a bit more gear, once everyone is really settled into the grind, I’ll have more spare time for alts. And it’s not like this is all we do! We went out for dinner just this Wednesday. And came home and found people whispering us to run randoms as soon as we logged back on… but hey! That’s a social life!

I have gotten good progress on alts… in direct porportion to how useful they are to the raid, for utility or to make gear. Like how squishybear is now all tricked out and my hunter is progressing rapidly. if you find some reason one of your alts can help the raid it chances are it will suddenly start getting geared up :D

I try hard to channel my inner bossy-ness to useful things like scheduling, and keep it to a minimum with the heal team – you are all awesome healers or you wouldn’t BE on the team, it’s not like I have to micromanage you, just keep the big picture in mind.

Ah yes, the painful ecstasy of raid leading, the glorious punishment. I raid led in a few different guilds in the years, and I also raided in a few different guilds. I couldn’t agree more with what Crits said, that if you’re not leading the raid, it’s really not worth it.

At the same time, as raid leader, you can’t help but feel responsible when a raid fails to attain its goals. Even when it’s not your fault, when your play is flawless and your knowledge unparalleled, every raid leader feels like a failure when their raids go awry. Different raid leaders I’m sure feel it at different depths, and we all know they express it in different ways (some hilariously frapped for the later amusement of others). However, I truly believe that a little sadness strikes every raid leader with almost every wipe.

I once told a raid of 24 perfectly nice people that every time they failed the jump to Thaddeus’s platform, my heart grew one size smaller.

I stopped raiding with that guild about a month later.

Enjoy it, Crits, and I hope your guild meets your every expectation and that your future is filled with the loot you want for the people you think deserve it. Too often it happens the other way. Good gaming!

At first when I read this all I saw was Warning Warning Burnout Warning Warning.

But then when I noticed that it was division of labor. Logistics vs Tactical Raid Leading … well that’s more manageable.

One suggestion if your guild is normal and since I ran with y’all once you seemed normal… you probably could use a drill sgt type to bust tail taking more of the load off of the logistics and lead person

We ran a Drill Sgt guy during Ulduar/TOC and it worked FANTASTIC! (of course he was a real Sargent Major…).

His job was to bust tail between pulls to get the raid in shape to listen to the Raid leader

A Drill Sgt does the following:
1 – clamps down on vent chatter
2 – polices your socials that want to text other guilds in local area chat
3 – make sure everyone is buffed
4 – reminds raiders to REPAIR (is it me or is this like telling your toddler to go bathroom…)
5 – coordinates buffs
6 – works on spec changes and the shift in raid make up if player leaves or is removed or a sub is brought in
7 – works with problem children that make same raid strat mistakes over and over (and recommends remedies to Raid lead)

basically all the butt wiping and nose blowing so the RL can concentrate on strats or navel depending on how they roll. (sorry just got goofy there).

It is an interesting concept. Somtimes Analogue is doing bits of that role and sometimes I do. Generally we don’t have anyone or anything needing any ‘busting’. The 10 man group hand picked for compatability makes things pretty smooth. I have to snap at people now and then if they clutter up vent or something but not very often. The closest we come to this dynamic is on fights where we have Ado doing the raid ‘calling’. In those cases I hang back and try to only speak up for those sorts of issues.

Our vent can get down right spooky quiet at times. We have our raid stacked with people that really like quiet and calm vent and that are very good at listening and following strats.